[Wikipedia-l] Two issues here:

Sun May 18 20:35:56 UTC 2003

Again, IANAL 

Tomos wrote:
> Ray suggested that it is perfectly legal not to act unless my country
> imposes an obligation to act. In my understanding (which I admit is not
> very deep nor solid), there is such an obligation. There are some cases
> (defamation the most famous, but also others such as harm to a business) in
> which admins were found to be liable.

You are overestimating and confusing the role of Adminship in Wikipedia; 
Admins have /no/ special legal responsibilities to do anything. Admins just 
have added capabilities to do certain things that we can't trust random users 
to do. So the only real Admin we have in a legal sense is Jimbo Wales - who 
unless he travels to Japan is outside of Japanese jurisdiction. 

Therefore you are /not/ legally compelled to remove material that is perfectly 
legal under US/California law. If a Japanese Admin still feels a need to do 
so or just goes ahead and does so, then we can remedy the situation by 
temporarily disabling the sysop status of the Admin's user account. 

> An admin for Japanese wikipedia can be held liable, under japanese legal
> system, basically when
>
> 1) the content harms japanese (wikipedian, reader, or others such as a
> company),
> 2) I am aware of the content's illegality under japanese law, and
> 3) I do not delete the content despite that I have the ability (admin
> privilage) to do so.

See above. Simply put deleting such material would be a violation of our 
policy so a Japanese Admin does not really have the ability to do so to begin 
with.    

> Mav suggested that after the act of submission is made, only illegality
> that matters is that of U.S./California law. I think otherwise, (i.e.
> legality of admins action/inaction also matters) but that aside, if mav is
> right, then some questions arises -- do Japanese admins should learn
> US/California laws in order to perform their legal obligations and protect
> themselves?

As far I know US law can't touch a Japanese citizen so long as that citizen is 
outside of US jurisdiction. But a Japanese citizen does need to follow 
US/California copyright law to have their work reside on a server in San 
Diego. So this is just a Wikipedia policy on what we allow to be on our 
server. 

> Another question is if things like social reputation and privacy of a
> japanese citizen is protected under any U.S. law. If not, the implications
> include that Japanese admins should refuse to remove a content which
> violate privacy of a japanese citizen, written in Japanese, even when the
> victim asks to do so. As you can imagine, that this is against some
> peoples' ethical standards.

As long as it is legal under US/California law and is also NPOV and an 
encyclopedic topic then the material should stay. 

I'm sure Japanese law isn't so draconian that a well-written, NPOV and 
encyclopedic article would break Japanese law.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)